1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a secondary battery management system, a secondary battery management apparatus, and a secondary battery management method for gathering and managing information relating to a secondary battery.
2. Description of Related Art
Hybrid vehicles, electric automobiles, and so on have been developed in recent years in response to environmental concerns. Vehicle secondary batteries installed in these vehicles are used for a longer time than secondary batteries used in other electric appliances. A vehicle secondary battery also tends to be more expensive than secondary batteries used in other electric appliances. Therefore, when the vehicle is to be scrapped, the vehicle is dismantled and the vehicle secondary battery is recovered. Further, when the vehicle secondary battery is replaced after reaching the end of its life or breaking down, the replaced vehicle secondary battery is likewise recovered.
The recovered secondary battery may or, may not be reusable. In a conventional technique, therefore, information relating to individual secondary batteries is gathered and used to manage the secondary batteries. Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2007-141464 (JP 2007-141464 A), for example, discloses a technique of storing information relating to use histories of individual secondary batteries in an information storage apparatus provided separately to a vehicle, and when a secondary battery is recovered, determining a reuse method of the secondary battery on the basis of the information stored in the information storage apparatus.
The reuse method of a recovered secondary battery is often determined in a store or the like that recovers secondary batteries by associating the recovered secondary battery with the information stored in the information storage apparatus. A case report is received from the store or the like with regard to a secondary battery in which a degree of deterioration of the secondary battery differs from a degree predicted from the information stored in the information storage apparatus and so on, for example. In certain cases, the secondary battery of the case report is collected and analyzed.
However, the related art described above includes the following problem. Case reports are often provided by the store or the like as a whole at intervals of two to three weeks. Hence, when a removed secondary battery is to be collected for analysis after the case report is received, the secondary battery may already have been reused, dismantled, or the like and cannot therefore be collected. When, on the other hand, an attempt is made to predict the need for component replacement of the secondary battery on the basis of the information stored in the information storage apparatus without relying on the case report, a large amount of information must be analyzed, and therefore an excessive load is exerted on the system.